Survivor: You’re a Terrible Person

This week on Survivor, we take a journey through the armpit of humanity.

At camp the night of Amanda’s ouster, Rupert is really upset at Candice for flipping. He hilariously calls Candice “self-centered”. Hey, if anyone is qualified to identify this particular trait in others, it’s Rupert, I guess. “She deserves to be on the Villains tribe,” he says with disgust. I love that he still thinks it means something to be a Hero. He’s so out of touch. Kind of like my grandma, but significantly less adorable. Same beard, though.

The next day, Rupert’s still pissed. “I think Russ is a deceitful person,” he spits. “Anything he says is a lie. He is worse than Jonny Fairplay!” Considering that Russell is worse than just about everyone, this isn’t a surprising statement. Even Jonny Fairplay’s at home on the couch going, “Man, this guy terrible.”

Rupert decides that the best course of action is to confront Russell about what a terrible person he is. In Rupert’s brain, no one else has noticed that Russ is a dick, so pointing this out is apparently going to bring everyone over to his side in one fell swoop. Their eyes will be opened by the majesty of Rupert’s superior assessment of others, and they will kneel before him and humbly request that they align.

Rupert sits down at the fire, looks Russell square in the eye, and abruptly and without prompt says the following: “Russell, you’ve already proven yourself to be to be a disgusting terrible human being. You swear on your kids’ life.”

Russell, succinctly: “Well, that’s the game. You really fucked that up for yourself.”

When Rupert starts criticizing Russell as a person, Russell nails him but good: “Uh oh, the great and powerful Rupert, the second coming of Christ. You’re such a dumb ass, Rupert.” Indeed, Russell. Indeed.

Congratulations, I didn’t hate you for one brief moment.

Fuckin’ Rupert has no place telling anyone what kind of person to be, let alone to judge them. Russell is a dick for many reasons, but those reasons have nothing to do with the game or the moves he’s made. Call Russell a dick, or be bitter about the game, but don’t confuse the two, and definitely don’t make it so obvious that you think you’re better than everyone else when you are, in fact, THE WORST.

And that is the story of How I Rooted For Russell, That One Time. Tell your grandkids!

Immunity Challenge. Everyone will be standing on a tiny perch and holding one arm above their heads. The arm will be attached to a giant bucket of colored water, and the last person standing wins. At various points, Probst will be offering food to tempt the contestants into quitting. There’s also a note which will be read at the end of the challenge.

On an unrelated note, armpits are totally gross.

Even Danielle’s boobs are grossed out by Danielle’s armpits.

One minute in, Probst brings out the first plate of food. Sandra announces that she’s taking it before it’s even been revealed, and Russell echoes agreement. Probst seems floored that two people would want to quit immediately, and he demands that they take themselves out of the challenge before he reveals the food. When they call his bluff and eliminate themselves, Probst seems disgusted when he hands them the plate of cookies and milk.

At twenty minutes in, Probst brings out a plate of donuts and an ice coffee, which is my kryptonite. If it were possible, I would take a bath in ice coffee every morning. I agreed to let Flipit pay me in ice coffee. What? It helps to keep costs down and ward off immigrant recappers from coming in here to take our jobs.

Colby steps down for the donuts, which is totally stupid. That guy has checked out. At thirty-five minutes, Probst brings out a plate of candy and potato chips, and Candice, Danielle and Jerri all take it, leaving only Parvati and Rupert to compete.

“I hate you bitches,” Parvati says, and she should. They left her to compete! Fools. A few minutes later, Rupert starts to wobble and falls off the perch, giving Parvati the win. Yet again, he is bitter. “I could have made it for hours!” he says. No, you couldn’t have, because you just fell, dick. Heroes aren’t sore losers, buddy. Sack up.

There’s still the matter of the note, which is a clue to yet another hidden immunity idol. Probst fucking <em>reads it aloud</em> to the group. Now, I’m not anti-immunity idol; I think it adds a strategic layer to the game that I find enjoyable. However, there should be some challenge to locating them. Hide them in difficult places, for God’s sake. When Russell can just wander around camp looking in random places and find nine idols a season, that may indicate a problem. There should also be one or two a season max, and they should disappear permanently after they’re used. Otherwise, assholes like Russell can botch the strategic game completely and survive solely on idols. The idols should add to the strategic portion of the game, not cancel it out completely. This is just overkill.

Back at camp, a mad dash ensues for the immunity idol. The clue mentions a burning bush, so Sandra (“I was looking for something that was, like, on fire.”) begins digging in a set of red bushes and finds the idol! I still think putting a new idol into the game at the final eight is bullshit, but on the other hand: Finally, someone besides Parvati and Russell. And not just anybody, but SANDRA! Awesome.

And because Sandra has already found the idol, Rupert comes up empty handed. However, Rupert’s got a pretty smart plan (first time for everything, I guess): He’s going to stick a rock in the pocket of his pants to make it look like he found something, and then he’s going to do what he does best, which is act superior and self-satisfied so people will think he’s safe. Hey, at least the guy plays off of his strengths.

When Rupert returns to camp with his big obvious bulge (oh stop, you are gross), Russell takes one look at him and decides that Rupert’s found the idol. “I know immunity idols, I know exactly how they look in a pocket, and he’s found one.”

The Villains decide to split the votes between Rupert and Colby so that any use of the idol will still result in the elimination of a Hero. However, Jerri points out that Colby is useless this season, and she doesn’t trust Candice because she’s so willing to flip-flop, so Jerri wants to split the vote between Rupert and Candice instead. Never mind that Jerri did the same thing Candice did when she flipped on Boston Rob at the beginning of the game, Candice is a conniving skank!

The Villains agree to this plan, and Colby somehow gets wind of it. He tells Rupert that they can vote for Candice as well, which will result in her ouster and saves their hides for another round. The best part about all of this is, as always, Sandra: “I know Rupert’s dumb ass doesn’t have the idol, because I have it, but all of this is good for Sandra, right?” Even when she refers to herself in the third person, she is amazing.

Tribal Council. The jury enters; Amanda looks cleaned up, and her dead eyes are gone. Probst asks Candice about her flip last week. Candice argues that Amanda was going home either way, which is obviously not even close to true. Colby calls her out, telling her that he has no respect for excuses. When Candice clarifies that she was trying to get herself further in the game, he steps down from his high horse briefly to tell her that’s fine. Not really enjoying Colby and Rupert in this episode, you guys. Jump off of those ivory towers, guys.

Probst asks the group about the clue that he read aloud, and Rupert takes the opportunity to pretend that he found the idol some more. “I just went for a walk, and I stayed until I felt comfortable,” he says smugly. Fakery that involves smugness is pretty easy for Rupert, obviously.

Time to vote. Rupert votes for Candice, as does Colby. Candice votes for Rupert. When Probst reads the votes, there are three for Rupert and the rest are for Candice. I love that Rupert and Colby have successfully leveraged Colby’s ineptitude to keep themselves in the game. Way to go!

Candice is a pretty good sport in her final words, admitting that she made a dumb move that didn’t pay off. “I guess karma is a bitch,” she says, laughing. Good for her.

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Later, fool!

Back at camp afterwards, Russell is furious that Colby and Rupert are still around. “We just blew it! It was a terrible decision,” he says. He actually holds himself responsible for the failure instead of blaming someone else, so it appears that we’re making progress.

When Russell tells Danielle and Parvati that he’s worried about Colby and Rupert, Danielle points out that they suck at challenges, so he maybe shouldn’t worry so much. “I’m not in control of this game right now; Parvati and I are sharing control,” Russell says. Ha! Russell thinks he’s equal with Parvati! How cute is that?

“I’m going to take control so fast they won’t know what hit ‘em,” he continues. Oh, Russell. Don’t you just want to pat him on the head?

Immunity challenge number 2. This immunity challenge has three stages. In the first stage, all seven people will race to unearth a stick complete a table maze. The first five to finish will race up a climbing wall, and the top three there will race to complete a slide puzzle for immunity. Rupert and Sandra are the first through the table maze; Sandra is surprised that she’s actually good at a challenge: “I can’t believe it!” she says incredulously to Rupert. Clearly, the editors love her as much as I do.

Unfortunately, Sandra gets eliminated at the climbing wall. Russell, Parvati and Rupert are the final three, and Russell manages to finish first and win himself immunity.

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You are the WORST puzzle ever. You DISGUST me.

After the challenge, it is raining like a bitch back at camp. Russell tells us that he wants to take control of the game, and since Danielle are Parvati are getting a little too close for him, he’s going to take one of them out. He will also be hopelessly fucking himself out of any chance he ever had of winning, but he doesn’t tell us that part.

He goes to Danielle first, telling her that they would never beat Parvati for the million (true, but also they would never beat anyone else) and thus should think about getting rid of her. Danielle and her scary boobs actually consider doing this for a split second before realizing that it is a terrible idea, at least at the moment.

Instead of leaving it at this and conspiring only with Danielle, Russell does a typically Russell-y thing and completely overplays his hand, telling Parvati the same thing: that Danielle is after her and that they’d better get rid of her. When Parvati makes the completely logical statement that this is something she should talk to Danielle about, Russell completely loses his shit. Knowing that this would be bad for him, he scurries quickly. “Parvati, I promise you that if you talk to Danielle, you’re out of this game, I promise you,” he says. Parvati tells him that it’s completely ridiculous not to talk to her about this, and immediately, Russell knows that he’s completely fucked. What, did he think that Parvati would just take his word for it? That Parvati and Danielle don’t talk to each other? A round of applause for the best player in history, everyone.

“Let’s talk about how you should just do whatever I want.”

As with everything Russell’s ever done on this show, this move is underthought and overexecuted. When Danielle and Parvati compare notes, they are furious with him for trying to trick them. “He’s getting outplayed by me and Danielle at this point, and it’s making him crazy,” Parvati says correctly. She and Danielle figure out pretty quickly that Jerri would be the swing vote in this scenario, so they tell her the entire story and make her promise to keep them both around. “You guys, don’t worry, I’m totally voting for Rupert,” she says like their doubt for her is the dumbest thing in the world. Oh, Jerri.

Predictably, Russell makes his move on Jerri, telling her that they need to vote out Danielle. “If you don’t vote out Danielle, you’re gonna be next,” he tells Jerri. When Jerri logically asks why, Russell’s response is hilarious: he just repeats the sentence over and over again, because it’s not like he’s actually thought this plan out, and as we all know from Fox News if you say something enough times, it automatically becomes true.

“Well, if you can’t tell me why, than I don’t want to hear it,” Jerri tells Russell as he tries to yell over her louder and louder. La la la la, Russell can’t hear you and your logic, Jerri!

Tribal Council. Parvati and Danielle immediately jump on Russell, telling Probst that they were “pitted against each other”. Parvati proceeds to tell the entire story, which causes Russell to immediately begin denying everything. “I didn’t get caught doing anything,” he says. When Danielle calls him a liar to his face, he starts to tell them that he “wanted to see where they stood”.

Danielle gets downright furious at this, begging Russell to admit that he’s a liar, yelling that she doesn’t understand, and then breaking down into tears. Now is probably not the right time to point out that it sort of looks like she has a hair problem on her upper lip.

Whoops!

“I’m so exhausted, this is just too much for me!” she moans, bawling. Russell takes this opportunity to look at the rest of the tribe and mouth Danielle’s name to them, begging each of them to vote for her. Then he lays it on some more, denying the whole thing further. “I don’t understand why you’re putting all of this on me, I didn’t do anything,” he says, seeing his opening to make her cry some more, and knowing that this is his only shot.

“Whatever, Russell, we talk to each other, I’m closer to Parvati than you think!” Danielle spits at him. He looks at her with surprise and disdain, like he can’t believe how distasteful she’s being. When Russell is judging you for being trashy, it might be time to tone it down a little.

Time to vote. Parvati votes for Rupert and Russell votes for “Danellie”. Not even kidding. Even his spelling lacks finesse.

Jerri votes and we don’t see it, but we hear her say “I have no idea what just happened, but with this vote I’m sealing my fate.”

When Probst retrieves the votes there first three for Rupert, and the next four are for Danielle, (well, one is for “Danellie”), and she’s out. Parvati is completely disgusted with Russell. “That’s messed up,” she spits furiously.

So Russell got what he wanted, but he has completely and totally ruined absolutely everything for himself in the process. Man, this is WAY more satisfying than watching him cry.